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Jungle Duck
This show is no stranger to jungle adventures, but this one
has a few things to make it interesting, most of which develop Mrs.
Beakley. She’s as maternal and nurturing
you’d expect from a nanny, but throughout the series, she’s prove her to be savvy
to adventures. We get more of that here
and learn about where she came from.
She
used to be the nanny of a prince named Greydrake whose plane disappeared in the
Congo jungle 20 years ago. It says a lot
about Mrs. Beakley once caring for a duck of royalty, especially how great a
caretaker she’s been.
There’s also a
subplot of another Scrooge fortune hunt as he takes the gang to the Congo. He wants to
find a statue called the Silver Buzzard, believing that where there’s a silver
statue, there’s a silver mine. Playing
to the creative adventure-crafting this show is known for, the group is warned
of a jungle phantom swinging through the trees who snatches hapless people in
the jungle. Mrs. Beakley is the most
afraid, but it can be looked at her being more human. We know she can be productive in adventures,
but she can still be frightened.
As
things turn out, she ends up captured by the supposed phantom, yet she gets to
know that he’s more than a simple-minded jungle bum. When she runs into wild animals while trying
to escape, the jungle phantom rescues her, and even civilizes when Mrs. Beakley
teaches him manners. He’s actually a
kind-hearted muscular duck living in the trees and acting as a typical feral
person, with Tarzan yells, leopard skin, and non-complete
sentences.
Even more interesting is that
circumstances have Mrs. Beakley find out he’s actually Prince Greydrake, living
in the jungle for all these years. It
isn’t often that a jungle guy turns out to be royalty. This sets into motion
tying all the little story points together starting with an earlier juggling
trick Mrs. Beakley showed the boys leading to the discovery. Scrooge’s fortune hunt also enhances the
bigger story when Greydrake and Mrs. Beakley spot the others captured by
natives who want to boil them in crude oil.
By the way, the natives portrayed as one-dimensional savages who attack
newcomers without consent is slightly discomforting and probably wouldn’t fly
well today.
After Greydrake rescues
everyone, Scrooge cons him into leading everyone to the Silver Buzzard. As a clever twist, the Buzzard is the
plane that crashed and stranded Greydrake in the jungle. The following scene is exciting where
everyone rushes to fix the plane as the natives attack, and Greydrake summons
elephants to forge the runway. However,
escaping the jungle takes up a lot of time. It doesn’t leave enough substance for the confrontation with Greydrake’s evil uncle who put him on that
staged crash in the first place.
Greydrake just swings in during the coronation and easily snags the
crown to become the rightful king. It’s
a very basic resolution that could’ve benefitted from being a little
longer. It also could’ve had more weight
with time devoted to Greydrake deciding to leave the jungle where he’s lived
for much of his life. Not to mention, it
begs a lot of questions on how well his home kingdom will function with a ruler
who thinks like an ape.
As you can see,
it could’ve ended better, but for great moments from Mrs. Beakley and how well
all the little plot points go together, there’s enough merit to this episode.
A-
The Ranking
- Duck to the Future
- Jungle Duck
The next DuckTales review looks into the story of Launchpad's first crash which took him and Scrooge to the center of the Earth.
Next time on MC Toon Reviews from Rocko's Modern Life, it's "Hair-Licked" and "Gutter Balls."
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